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FREEHOLD — A former Eatontown detective who admitted asking for sexual favors from an arrestee avoided a prison term but was placed on probation for five years on Friday and forced to give up the career he wanted since he was a child.

“Your utterly hideous act, your incredibly poor judgment has cost you your career in law enforcement,” Superior Court Judge Thomas F. Scully told Philip Emanuele in imposing the probationary term on him. “You lost your dream – the position you sought from youth.”

Emanuele, 33, of Brick, a married father of two young children, pleaded guilty Oct. 3 to criminal coercion and tampering with physical evidence. In entering his guilty plea, he admitted he asked a 24-year-old woman for sexual favors after arresting her on a theft charge at the Monmouth Mall last year and then flushing prescription painkillers and several bags of heroin he had seized from her down a toilet at police headquarters.

The woman’s arrest occurred Dec. 21. Emanuele, in entering his guilty plea, admitted telling the woman she would not be able to spend time with her family if she was charged with narcotics offenses, and asked her what she would do for him in return for discarding the drugs. When she questioned what he meant, he apologized and then elicited her cooperation as a confidential informant.

As the woman continued to work as an informant for Emanuele, he discussed the possibility of downgrading or dismissing the theft charge against her on Feb. 16, took her to the Monmouth Mall to look for drug dealers, but then diverted her to a nearby parking lot where he asked her for sexual favors, Emanuele admitted in court on Oct. 3. He acknowledged that he held the theft charge over the woman to obtain what he wanted from her and began kissing her neck and chest.

The victim, in court on Friday, said Emanuele raped her. She said when she refused his request to perform oral sex on him, he pulled down her pants, pulled up her sweater, took down his pants and raped her.

The Asbury Park Press does not identify victims in cases where sexual crimes are alleged.

Emanuele had also been charged with sexual assault, but that charged was dismissed in the plea bargain.

The victim said in court that she agreed to the terms of the plea bargain “since I was assured he would lose his job as a police officer.”

“This is a situation where this defendant police officer took advantage of his position as a police officer to ultimately get what he wanted from the victim,” said Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Gregory Schweers.

Schweers said the terms of the plea bargain, which require Emanuele to forfeit his police job and any possible future public employment in New Jersey, means he will never again be in the position to take advantage of a woman by virtue of his position as a police officer.

Emanuele’s attorney, Arthur G. Margeotes, noted the numerous letters that friends and family of his client sent to the judge attesting to his good character. One was from Emanuele’s mother, recalling that her son had told her at age 2 that he wanted to be a police officer, Margeotes said.

Margeote said Emanuele worked as a class 2 special police officer in Point Pleasant Beach in 2003, as a police dispatcher in Eatontown in 2004, and as an Eatontown police officer since December of 2004. Authorities have said Emanuele was made a detective in 2009 and earned $114,712 a year in that position.

“His life was his law enforcement career, and his family and his friends,’’ Margeote said. “”His career up until the incident, was exemplary.’’

Accompanied to court by his wife and other family members, Emanuele sat in the jury box for the sentencing, hanging his head and facing away from cameras.

“I was wrong, I made a mistake, I’ve accepted responsibility for that mistake, and I just want to move on with my life,” Emanuele told the judge prior to being sentenced.